Ann Erdman is the Public Information Officer for the City of Pasadena, California.
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Thursday, April 22, 2010

Mystery History -- Solved

Kevin wins with his 9:11 p.m. Wednesday guess "Judging by the vinyl LPs, I would say it is early 1960s. I think a deer ran through her house. Notice how none of the plant vegetation is around the plant except for one leaf that fell quite away from the dirt. The deer may have eaten the plant. The ironing board was knocked over too. The iron is under the far chair. The deer probably took the ironing board when it left. It would make a perfect deer-shaped sleeping platform out in the woods."

(Karin was on the right track with her 3:33 p.m. Tuesday guess "It can't be a quake -- look at the lamp and the records. How about an animal ran through the house -- a raccoon or a bear" but there are no second-place prizes in Mystery History.)

In the photo above, taken April 15, 1955, a distraught Betty Reed and her cat survey her wrecked living room after a 150-lb. male deer crashed through the window.

Here she is at the window with her five-year-old son Jay (and that darn cat):

Turns out the buck had come down from a nearby hillside to the residential neighborhood. But soon it caught the attention of a dog, which began barking loudly and frightened the poor thing to the point where it went berserk.

The buck also smashed through a window of the Reeds' next-door neighbor Jeanne Davis, in this photo with her daughter Virginia:

It wasn't long before Officer William Paisley of the Pasadena Police Department and Officers Cecil Fraser (left) and Howard Bishop of the Pasadena Humane Society arrived. Since the buck had become a threat to safety, they decided on a swift course of action.

It was pronounced dead at the scene. The neighborhood kids were awe-struck.

What is so charming (besides the clothes) is that these citizens seem to have posed for the photos. What's not so charming is that they saw no choice but to kill this poor animal. I'm guessing they didn't have tranquilizer guns back then. It was before Earth Day, after all.

Ha, Victory! The race doesn't always go to the swift. Sometimes those of us who live show biz hours can still beat the pack. As I always say, "The early bird may get the worm, but the late worm avoids the early bird."